Thursday, February 14, 2013

Did The Waco Star-Telegram Claim The Waco Cabela's Will Be The #1 Tourist Attraction In Texas?

I was a little surprised on Facebook today to see Bud Kennedy, he being a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, telling Fort Worth that "we're suckers."

Suckers? Why, you ask?

Mr. Kennedy says the people of Fort Worth are suckers because they gave the sporting goods store called Cabela's $40 million in tax breaks on the promise to bring 2.5 million visitors a year to Fort Worth.

I really do not know where to start.

First off it was not the people of Fort Worth who gave Cabela's tax breaks. That was done by the naive, incompetent, common senseless Fort Worth City Government, cheered on by the City of Fort Worth's propaganda purveyor known as the Star-Telegram.

The Star-Telegram repeated, over and over and over again, that the Fort Worth Cabela's would be the #1 Tourist Attraction in Texas.

Depending on who was writing the propaganda the number of tourists ranged from 4 million to 8 million.

I would read this propaganda and be absolutely appalled and sort of embarrassed that people whose job it was to report news and apply some common sense to what they were reporting, did not intuitively realize that if a sporting goods store could be the #1 Tourist Attraction in Texas that this clearly indicated the Texas Tourist Industry had a very serious problem with having a lack of decent Tourist Attractions.

And how can someone (Bud Kennedy made this claim) not automatically realize that 8 million visitors to a sporting goods store in one year is not even remotely feasible?

I was so appalled that I emailed Bud Kennedy about his 8 million visitors claim, along with the #1 Tourist Attraction claim.

Bud Kennedy replied to me by saying that I must be against business. I replied something like, "no, I am not against business, what I am against is a newspaper making ridiculous claims about something like a sporting goods store becoming the #1 Tourist Attraction in Texas, drawing up to 8 million visitors."

Reading Bud Kennedy today in Facebook had me wondering if he has forgotten his initial assertions regarding the Fort Worth Cabela's. Bud Kennedy is amazingly prolific, so it would not shock me if he does not remember something he wrote in the Star-Telegram years ago.

After Bud Kennedy trivialized my comments about the Star-Telegram Cabela's propaganda, by saying I must be against business, I sort of had myself an instant dislike for the guy. That has since greatly abated, to the point I now actually like Bud Kennedy and think he's about the best thing that comes out of the Star-Telegram. With some periodic lapses.

Cablela's came up today, with Bud Kennedy, due to the announcement that Cabela's is now opening a store in Waco. It was not long after the Cabela's opened in Fort Worth that a Cabela's was opened in Buda, by Austin. Then another Cabela's opened in the D/FW Metroplex, in Allen.

Bud Kennedy's reference to Fort Worth getting suckered is the closest I have seen to reading anyone associated with the Star-Telegram admitting that the Star-Telegram got suckered into being propaganda tools for Cabela's #1 Tourist Attraction in Texas scam.

I have blogged about the City of Fort Worth and the Star-Telegram getting suckered by these out of state Cabela's slicksters a few times from 2008 to 2011...

I was directly involved in, and paid for, the Cabela's law suit agianst the city in an attempt to void the city's ability to create a TIF for the Cabela's...and Bud Kennedy was one of their strongest supporters at the time. What he and the Startlegram should have been doing is being the watchdog for citizen's money instead of supporting future advertisers.Louis McBee